


The Oblivion Effect

by tenzo



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe, F/F, Science Fiction, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-06-22
Updated: 2011-07-20
Packaged: 2017-10-20 15:51:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/214411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tenzo/pseuds/tenzo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's a 21st century London girl. <em>She's</em> a 51st century Time Agent. Together, they save their (alternate) universe! Sexily.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Once upon a time I wrote some silly porn about another Rose from another dimension who was a Time Agent rather than the Doctor's companion. Then I started to think about that dimension's River Song and what she'd be up to in a Doctorless universe. Inevitably, my thoughts went to Rose/River-y places. And then shit got plotty.

"For the first nineteen years of my life nothing happened. Nothing at all. Not ever. And then I met--"

A metallic crackle sails through the stale air. "A little less dramatic, please, Agent Tyler." There's a pop as the intercom turns off again.

Rose pushes a lock of hair behind her ear. "Right," she drawls. "The boring version. My recruitment into the Agency occurred on 26 March, 2005, when I was 19 years of age. Inducting agent: River Song. I have served with Special Branch with a clearance of 23-Mauve-Crosshatch for the past four linear years."

The unseen voice again: "And in that time, you have been brought up on disciplinary charges... five--no, excuse me, _six_ times."

She levels her gaze at the camera that she knows is behind the gunmetal grey wall across from where she is seated. "Counting this go, that'd be seven, actually."

"Which is three more incidents than _should_ have triggered a full review of your file. You are long over-due. Perhaps Agent Song liked to run her operations by her own rules, but in her absence, we have no choice but to follow established procedure."

 _In her absence._

Those three words sting her and send her skin prickling. She grips the armrest of her chair, hoping her unseen inquisitors won't notice her white knuckles. Like the paper finger-traps that she used to get at friends' birthday parties as a child, the more she visibly struggles during this process, the longer she will be delayed. And the longer it will be before she can make right everything that has gone wrong.

 

***

 

The first time Rose Tyler travelled via vortex manipulator, she vomited right there on the pavement, while this strange woman in khaki shook her head and tutted.

"You had better get used to that, dear."

Rose spat a few times and wiped her mouth before even beginning to try to assemble the pieces of what had just occurred. "What was _that_?"

The woman just stood there with a lopsided smile, one hand on a shapely hip, fingers just barely grazing the rather large gun that she openly wore.

"Where are we?" Rose asked, simultaneously noting how stupid of a question that was. They were obviously on the Embankment, across from the London Eye. But just a second ago, they'd been somewhere else entirely. The question wasn't so much _where_ but _how_.

"Right," the woman said, punching some buttons on what looked like an overly-large wrist-watch. "It'll be using the Eye as a giant transmitter, so it's quite nearby. Possibly right underneath our feet. Off we go, then," she said, and strode towards Westminster Bridge.

Rose trotted along behind her, mind swimming with questions.

"But why did you said I'd have to get used to that?" Rose asked, getting winded trying to keep up with the woman's pace. "Are we going to have to do... whatever _that_ was again?"

The woman in khaki cocked her head over her shoulder slightly. "You'll have to do it quite a lot, when you join the Agency."

They were crossing over the bridge now, and the noise of the traffic made conversing difficult. Rose couldn't be quite sure that she heard correctly.

"I'm sorry: when I join the Agency? What Agency? Who _are_ you?"

The woman stopped walking abruptly, nearly causing Rose to run right into her. The purple lights of the Eye flashed behind the curls of the woman's hair, like a crown, and she smiled down on Rose benevolently.

"I'm your new boss," she said, and turned on her heel again. "Do try and keep up."

***

"Our records indicate that your last check with your Agency liaison was three linear weeks ago. Is that correct?"

They had let Rose go back to her quarters, shower, change clothes and grab a bit of bunk time. Now returned to the claustrophobic grey room (exactly like a lift, she thought), that disembodied voice is back at it.

"Far as I know," she answers, trying to sound nonchalant. "It was creamed schweed in the canteen that day, yeah?"

No response.

"I'm sure it's in your own records. I scanned my ID when I reported, so you know as well as I do."

"And was Agent Tiro with you at that time?"

Rose feels the bile rise in her throat, which she disguises as a coughing fit. She images River watching her, disapproving of this frankly amateur display of bluffing. Over time, they'd developed a bit of a division of labour, she and River, and lying was never on the rota for Rose for a reason.

"No, he was not," she chokes out finally. "Which you also know." _Even though you know less than nothing_ , she continues in her head. _Even though every minute you keep me here, the list of things you know grows shorter and shorter._

The faint drone of white noise emitted by the intercom is broken again. "And where were you prior to your arrival?"

Her pulse quickens, and she hopes they are not running a bioscan on her. "I was on Farn," she says. "Timestream 367.0054, linear J."

There's a click as if her interrogator has pressed the button to speak, but then turned it off again. Her palms are sweating and this time not due to a lie. The truth is becoming more horrible than any falsehood.

"Location: _Farn_ does not complete search string," says the voice. "Please repeat, Agent Tyler."

It's happening again.

 

***

Energy discharges sailed over their heads, some coming so disconcertingly close that the hairs on Rose's arms stood on end. River didn't look so much distressed as perturbed. She fussed with a lock of hair that had come free from her ponytail and screwed up her mouth into a pursed-lipped scowl.

"I was not expecting this," River shouted over the sounds of war all around their hiding spot.

Rose made like she was booting her wrist-comp up to take notes. "Hang on... all right, now repeat that please? For posterity, I mean."

"It's not funny. The Farnallax are a peaceful people. Peaceful to the point of being _actually_ irritating," River added.

Looking out over the top of the ditch they'd flattened themselves into, Rose shook her head. "Don't look so peaceful to me."

River blinked slowly. "And so you see the problem. When we got the assignment to investigate a dispute on Farn, I assumed we'd be moderating a negotiation council of some sort. That's much more their speed. A full-on civil war is--"

A bone-rattling explosion tossed debris (and some items Rose didn't fancy thinking about) high into the air overhead.

"So the Farnallax are peaceful except when they aren't, apparently," Rose said after the dust had cleared again. "So something must have tipped this off."

"Well, yes. Bravo."

"Oi, look," Rose said. "I'm just trying to think this through systematically."

River remained silent, which was close to an apology as Rose was going to get.

"So, if you're so knowledgeable about the Farnallax, then what is it that makes them such a peaceful people?" A rocket whizzed over their head, leaving a trail of black exhaust in its wake. "Normally, I mean."

"Do you _ever_ do your homework?"

"Not really my way, is it? 'Sides, you're such a cleverclogs, I don't need to. So, you were saying, about the Farnallax?"

"They're empaths," River said, without hesitation. "Violence becomes a lot less effective when you also feel the pain that you inflict on others."

"So, you think we're looking at something interfering with their empathic abilities?"

"Quite possibly. If I had to make a guess, I'd say that it's the very loss of this sense that has driven them all quite mad." River began punching buttons on her wrist-comp. "The only thing is, my scans aren't turning up anything that could interfere with any sort of psionic energy."

"Did you check the sigma-band reading--"

 _BOOM!_

A shower of debris fell on them, and Rose instinctively brought her hands up to protect her eyes. "Bloody hell!"

She expected the usual string of expletives to ring out from beside her, but after the dust settled, there was nothing but the distant sound of further explosions.

"River?" Rose took a second to wipe the fine crust of dirt from around her eyes before opening them again. "You know, I think we should consider this problem back on the ship-- Oh."

They were no longer alone in their trench.

The inhabitants of Farn are quadrupedal, with two arms and a prehensile tail. That's a lot of limbs with which to hold weapons, all of which were now pointing directly at River. She, in turn, faced off with a gun in each hand, gaze hard, level and unblinking.

This was Rose's least favourite part of her job, the shooty bit. She put her empty hands before her, slowly.

"Okay, all right, let's just take a moment here," she said.

River's eyes darted over to her for the barest fraction of a second.

"Draw your weapon, Tyler."

Rose chose to ignore her.

"I can see that you're quite upset," she said to the trembling Farnallax. "But we're here to help you, yeah? No one needs to shoot anybody."

"Agent Tyler," River again intoned.

Rose knew she was treading on very thin ice, and taking a risk she'd never forgive herself for if it went wrong, but something about the thousand-yard stare in the Farnallax's eyes made her feel like it didn't want to shoot anyone any more than she did. What's more, it was obviously wounded--deep purple blood flowed down its flank and dripped like oil into the dirt.

"You're injured." She pitched her voice to a soothing purr, trying to put the many other possible outcomes of this situation out of her mind. "We have medical facilities, on our ship. We can take you there right now, if you'll just--"

The Farnallax's eyes swivelled wildly in his sockets, as if he was about to lose consciousness. His limbs began to sag with the weight of all those firearms until he finally dropped them one by one, and his four knees buckled. Rose rushed forward as River re-holstered her guns. The reluctant warrior opened his mouth to speak but no noise came out.

"It's all right, we've got you," Rose said, supporting his head in her lap.

River punched a command into her vortex manipulator and the trio was gone in a flash of energy, ported directly to the medical bay on their orbiting cruiser.

"We really need to talk about your Florence Nightingale complex," River said, but not unkindly. "Can you hear me?" She had turned to the Farnallax, crumpled on the floor in the centre of the sterile white room. "What's your name?"

"We are called Twelfth in Cohort Etnn," he said weakly, his voice high and wavering. "We have to tell you--" His voice broke off into laboured wheezing.

River pulled out a tray of prepared first aid supplies appropriate to the Farnallax species class and approached. "Twelfth in Cohort Etnn, I'd just like to sort your wounds out first. Is that all right?"

"We'll talk later," Rose added, retrieving a few plasters for their own various cuts and scrapes. "You're safe now."

Twelfth in Cohort Etnn answered only in a low keening sound.

 

On the bridge of their cruiser, River slumped into the seat next to Rose.

"How's our friend doing?" Rose asked.

"Sedated."

"Did you get any more information out of him?"

"Still too weak. It may be nothing,just a standard get-us-out-of-here plea for friends and family." She'd been unlacing her boots while she spoke and finally kicked them off. "My feet aren't half killing me."

"Give 'em here," Rose said, smiling and flexing her fingers. "Let me show you a little something I picked up on Opera. No one does a foot massage like a species with twenty feet, I can tell you."

"I know," River yawned, hoisting one foot gingerly into Rose's lap. "I've been."

The various sensors and auto-pilots blinked and let out the occasional informative beep, but otherwise the ship was quiet. A map showed their progress, moving at sublight speed away from the Farn system and back to the nearest Agency safe-moon, where they could continue to care for their charge as well as question him in secure surroundings.

"You think Gessup's going to be on duty when we get there?" Rose asked, applying pressure to River's Achilles tendon.

Breaking out into a spontaneous laugh, River brought a hand to her forehead. "Does the man not know how to knock? I think those big, meaty paws of his must be holograms. It's the only explanation! Right," River pointed to the display. "We're about to leave the Farn system. I should probably boot up the deepspace drives." She stretched her legs and wiggled her toes before easing herself out of the chair with a sigh.

"No, I'll go--"

Alarm bells sang out from several areas of the bridge and screens that had been dead flickered to life.

Rose jumped out of her own chair and ran to the controls. "Are we under attack? I don't see anything. Did we download that cloaking scan update?" She waited a quick beat and when there was no reply, turned around to see the other woman staring mutely at one of the video screens, hands covering the horrified 'o' of her mouth.

A black-and-white image of the medical bay flickered, a timestamp in the bottom corner stupidly ticking away the seconds as the Twelfth in Cohort Etnn lay on the floor, a small energy weapon in one hand and a widening pool of inky blood surrounding him. The life-support readings were all flatlined.

"Oh, god."

She saw River set her jaw and that familiar steeliness again came into her eyes. Rose had once thought River to be coldly (albeit intriguingly) detached, but had later come to know that this reserve was deployed as a force of her formidable will, strategically and selectively. In a way, Rose envied and admired this ability, but also feared it. One day, she thought, it would be turned on her, and it would break her heart.

The footage rewound, jagged lines of static obscuring the moment when this being they had taken into their care took its own life. River hit another button and the screen reassembled the image of the Twelfth in Cohort Etnn jolting awake as if stung, and sitting bolt upright in the bed they'd prepared for him.

His eyes were clear, and Rose realised that the far-away stare that he'd worn the entire time they'd been conversing with him was not his normal expression. Now he was focused, intelligent, and terrified. He looked around the medical bay as if seeing it for the first time, quickly located the surveillance camera and approached it.

"It's too late for us now," he said, looking directly through the lens. "Soon, all things will come to an end."

He held his head and moaned, not the far-away keening of before but a long, piercing wail of blackest anguish. "What have we done?" he cried, and then a small metal table was upended with a clatter, he had the gun in one of his hands and it was all over. The footage caught up to present time and stopped.

Rose felt empty. Her extremities tingled with the shock, but her mind was a blank. They had been up here _flirting_ while that poor man was alone, frightened, desperate... it was too awful. She realised that River had taken her hand briefly but then dropped it.

"I need you to make arrangements for the proper funerary rites." Her voice was as blank as Rose felt.

"But why did he... I mean, you said he was sedated. And what did he mean about it being too late?"

"Just take care of it," River said in a voice so low as to be nearly inaudible.

"It's all my fault, we should have never--"

"That's an order, Tyler."

Rose pursed her lips to force a stop to this nervous babbling. "Right."


	2. Chapter 2

The order to return to base came entirely too quickly, if not unexpectedly.

The sort of death that had happened in their medical bay--mysterious, seemingly pointless, almost random--was altogether different from the kind Rose had so carefully trained herself (and been trained) to be on familiar terms with. Assassinations of cruel despots were one thing, but the suicide of a scared, half-mad civilian... She felt like she needed to mourn, even though she'd barely known him. Only marginally comforting was the fact that at least it wasn't just her: River could be heard pacing through the ship during their nighttime hours.

Without having to talk about it, Rose knew that they would come back to Farn and finish what they had started, permission or not. They just needed to pay some lip service to their superiors first.

"Buggering hell," Rose said when she saw their new instructions.

"Language," River reminded her, but then took the paper and swore an oath herself. "A fucking _analyst_?"

"Why us?" Rose pleaded.

River sank into her chair in front of the deep-space controls with a sigh. "We're just that good, I suppose."

"No," Rose said, defiant. "that's not it."

River arched an eyebrow.

"I mean, we are that good, but that's not why they always pick us. What's this one's name?"

"Agent Lamm K. Tiro," she read.

"More like Agent Gooseberry, yeah? You know I'm right." She came behind River's chair and pulled one of her curls before leaning down and nuzzling her neck. "Say I'm right," she purred, happy that the clouds had lifted a little.

"When you're right, you're right," River said with the wry half-smile that drove Rose wild.

"And when I'm wrong?"

"You're _better_." River twisted around in her chair and before Rose could balance, she'd grabbed her around the waist and pulled her forward. "How long have we got before the drive is fully booted?"

Rose was already unbuttoning River's canvas jacket, sinking down to straddle her where she sat. "Long enough."

***

The Time Agency--quite improbably--had rules against fraternisation, even between agents of same rank, as Rose and River now were. It seemed ridiculous given the fact that sex was so important a part of their arsenal that a few agents even had an implant that gave them some sort of jumped-up pheromones. (Mostly the human males, Rose noted. Typical.) In her own induction classes, she'd been blatantly encouraged to use sex as persuasion, as a trap and, when necessary, as a weapon.

And she'd been an apt pupil, even if 51st century sexual mores were difficult to wrap her head around at first. Human men, okay; human women, she wouldn't pretend she hadn't always been interested, even in the 21st century; but non-humans? That took some getting used to, with the help of a very patient, very understanding nine-tentacled, three-eyed classmate who generously offered her extracurricular tuition. In the end, she received top marks.

Still, throughout all of it, she always returned to thoughts of the woman who had recruited her. All the other dalliances were fun, and sometimes necessary, but when she was alone in her bunk none of the others visited her fantasies. By contrast, Agent River Song was nowhere to be found as Rose went through her classes, and it slowly dawned on her that she might never see the woman again. After all, the Time Agency was a massive, sprawling organisation covering thousands of galaxies and millions of years of history. Once she graduated, there was no telling where she'd be assigned and with whom. Her chest ached at the thought.

The day _after_ she graduated, there was a knock at the door of her bunkpod.

"On your feet, Tyler," was all River had to say while opening the door. "We're shipping out at 0800. And bring that little black number I saw you wearing at the last Alternative Tactics training. It shows off your calves."

"I--" Rose stammered, scrambling off her bunk and knocking a number of items off a shelf in the process.

"You've been working out," River said with a wink before shutting the door again and leaving Rose alone, tingling from top to toe.

***

The Time Agency sector base seemed uncharacteristically laid-back when Rose and River arrived to collect their new charge. Field agents and office drones alike strolled the halls casually, no one seeming to be in much of a hurry to get anywhere. Half the bunkpods were vacant and the canteen was nearly empty.

"Looks like everyone's on their hols," Rose said, taking a second cake from the food conveyor since they didn't seem to be in much danger of running out.

River shrugged. "These things go in cycles. If we stick around for a few days, we''ll wake up one morning and the place'll be heaving."

"Then let's just pick up this boffin and get out of here," Rose said, eating her pudding first like an 8-year-old suddenly left to her own devices.

"Boffin? Guilty as charged, I suppose," came a sonorous male voice from rather disconcertingly close behind them.

Rose jumped a little but River coolly elevated her gaze and turned her head. "Agent Tiro, I presume."

"You presume correctly," Agent Tiro said.

Rose put her fork down and gave him an unabashed once-over. He was a tall man with olive skin, bulging, watery eyes and facial hair that made a rather bold statement. (That statement seemed to be, "I'm a pirate!" but she supposed that forked and braided goatees were probably the style on his planet.) He was dressed fastidiously, the shine on his shoes nearly indistinguishable from the shine of the polished floor of the canteen. _Well,_ thought Rose, _we'll dirty him up soon enough._

River liked to use the Uncomfortable Silence as a way of getting people she was suspicious of to make a tactical error. Agent Tiro, however, seemed immune. He rounded the canteen table, sat down primly, folding his hands on the plasticine surface, and simply waited her out. His eyes remained focused and unreadable, his body language completely neutral.

Finally, River had enough and stood, her chair clattering. "Be ready in 3 hours," she said stiffly. "You'll find our cruiser in Bay 18 on the fourth level. Don't be late."

Not wanting to be left alone with this man, Rose stood as well, popping a final bit of cake into her mouth.

"I'm very punctual," Agent Tiro said without affect. "It will be a pleasure to brief you on our mission at that time."

"I'm sure," said Rose, clearing her dinner tray. River was already nearly out the door.

 

***  
Rose is certain that her interrogator is an AI and that this is not simply an overdue disciplinary review. The big guns have been deployed: a system that can dispassionately make connections between the minutest of details and is most likely also monitoring her eye movements and skin conductivity.

Rose tries to remember what she's learned about evading biometric interrogations. Her primary strategy has always been to not get caught in the first place, but she never counted on her own side being the ones doing the catching.

"Agent Tyler, do you recall Agent Tiro's mission briefing?"

She swallows with a dry mouth, and tries to think of a sour food to promote saliva production. The AI will certainly be noting this as a sign of increased stress. "Yeah, of course. We were to escort him to the Commercial Court of Tamna and serve as his personal protection while he negotiated with the High Amalgamate."

"And how would you rate the success of this mission?"

"Satisfactory."

There's a long pause. "But you do realise that Agent Tiro was made late for his scheduled liaison afterwards..."

"We agreed together to go to the Maestra system. I saw the message he sent to his liaison with my own eyes." This is not entirely untrue. They hadn't gone to Maestra, but they _had_ agreed together to delay returning to base, and she _had_ witnessed Tiro notifying his liaison. Was it really so recently that she'd believed that man to be a friend?

The intercomm clicks on again and Rose waits for further evidence of this double-cross, but it does not come. "Location: _Maestra_ does not complete search string." Her heart plummets to the pit of her stomach. "Please repeat, Agent Tyler."

Maestra is only twenty parsecs from the Hidden Archive--that's why they'd picked it as a dummy location in the first place. She has to hurry. She has to tell them what they want to hear, if only she can figure out what, exactly, that is.

"Do you know the location of Agent Lamm Tiro?" the AI asks, moving on to the next node in its interrogation network.

 _Yes._ "No."

"Are you aware of the contents of his last communication?"

 _Lies._ "No."

 

***

"Agent Song will show you to your quarters." Rose hefted her rucksack onto her back in preparation to board their cruiser once again. As a home-away-from-- well, she didn't really have a _home_ as such any more, but the ship served its purpose. Technically, it belonged to the Agency and could be replaced or decommissioned entirely at a moment's notice, but in practise, their superiors seemed to feel that letting them keep it was just easier for everyone.

"Please, call me Lamm," the tall man said, pulling absently at one of the forks of his goatee.

Rose ignored him. "Our journey to Tamna will take about 65 standard hours. In that time--"

River came back down the gangway, all holsters and combat boots. "In that time we'll expect you to stay out of the way," she said. "We didn't ask for this assignment, but we're good little toy soldiers and we do as we're told."

Rose smiled sheepishly. "All aboard, Agent Tiro." River might be a good soldier, but one thing she did not mince were words.

Her intimidation tactics must have worked, because they barely saw the man for the entire journey. If he was assigned to them in order to put a crimp in their not-very-secret fraternising, he wasn't doing a very good job of it. After informing them of their mission (to provide discreet protection while he acquired an important item from the Mercantile Empire of Tamna), he seemed to melt right into the walls. Every now and then he'd appear in some public area of the ship--the galley, usually, or the fitness area--arriving just as silently as he would later leave again after exchanging a few brief, bland pleasantries.

He wasn't doing anything wrong (and in fact was doing precisely what River had ordered him to do), which is why Rose couldn't put a finger on what seemed so off about him. She'd looked him up just as soon as they'd gotten under way and found nothing but well-ordered official documentation. Everything checked out, except for his home system, which started with a C or a K or something, and was otherwise nonexistent in the Agency's databanks. That wasn't so unusual, though. There were plenty of little-known systems nestled on the fringes of remote galaxies that remained poorly documented. The Time Agency wasn't omniscient, after all.

Rose tried to put it aside, and didn't bring it up with River for fear of seeming a bit paranoid. Meanwhile, they spent their days alternately at their computers researching Farn and in bed, researching a good many more enjoyable things. These long journeys could be tedious, but with a mystery to work on and River's soft curls spread out on her pillow when she woke, it could be worse.

Still, Rose had been putting off the one thing that she felt could hold the key to fitting the pieces together. In the middle of one of the indistinguishable deep space "nights," she slipped out of the habitation quarters and padded up to the bridge, alone.

She couldn't forget the lucid, knowing look in the eyes of Twelfth in Cohort Etnn before he died. That was not a madman, that was someone who knew more than he could bear to live with. While he seemed to think that giving a direct warning was futile, there might still be a way that his death would not be in vain. She had to watch the footage again.

The ship was quiet except for the low hum of the deep-space drives, the lighting automatically turned to a low sleep mode. Rose sat in front of a bank of monitors and called up the stored video, bracing herself.

She looped through it several times, and rather than getting inured to it, it just seemed to get worse. Moreover, she wasn't getting any new information at all. The Farnallax seemed to think that what had happened on his planet was their own fault ( _What have we done?_ ) and thus somewhat outside the purview of the Time Agency. His warning that all things would soon end did not gain any further meaning. Perhaps it was simply a reflection on the inevitability of death. The mystery of what had so suddenly awoke him from deep sedation remained, and the life-support data was not helpful there, either.

As a last ditch, she tried muting the sound to see if just watching allowed her to gain a new perspective, but that didn't seem to be working either. She was getting nowhere and the mundane details surrounding the stark reality of death just began to look like a farce: The glass of water on the table that was upended as he reached for his weapon; the door to the toilet coming slightly ajar; the timecode in the corner ticking onward as if nothing important was happening.

 _The timecode._

They had noted the time of death but never thought to note the time that he had awoken. Had something happened somewhere else on the ship? Perhaps there'd been a psionic event or some other disturbance. It was worth a cross-check through the logs, at least. She inputted the data and downloaded the results to a tablet, meaning to take it back to bed to comb through, but the answer was right there on the very first line. She felt like an idiot for not thinking of it sooner.

Back in their quarters she gently shook River awake and thrust the tablet under her nose as soon as she sat up.

"I think you should see this."

"What time is it?" River rubbed her eyes and stretched with a groan.

"I don't know, 0300 or something. We're in space; does it matter?"

"What am I looking at?"

Rose sat down on the bed and snuggled into the duvet a bit. "I was just looking at the video of... you know, of what happened. Just trying to see if we missed anything and all. And I thought I'd cross-check the time that he woke up with the ship's logs, cos, you know, what if something from outside..."

River blinked sleepily. "And?"

" _And_ look: This is the _exact_ moment that his vitals went mental. Down to the millisecond."

"It was right when we passed over the Farn system's solar gravity barrier."

"Bingo."

"It's like... escaping the solar gravity field broke a spell that was on him." River's fingers slid lightly over the tablet's screen, calling up further information. "Farn's sun is called Nnae-I-Farn, a Class 8 star," she read.

Rose looked over River's shoulder and skimmed the data herself. "Have the Farnallax manipulated their sun in any way?"

"Manipulated?"

"Yeah, because of what that poor man said: _What have we done?_ Like it was their fault."

River tapped the side of the tablet with her nail and went quiet. Rose started to worry that she'd said something daft, though she'd been pretty proud of her discovery and was prepared to stick by it.

"What?" she finally asked.

"Maybe it was their own fault but... you know, the Farnallax have no word for 'I.'"

"So he could have been referring to things that he himself had done."

River nodded. "Things like killing members of his own Cohort, his own people. For a species like his, that's inconceivable."

"So, if this is an effect from their sun--what's it called, Nnae-I-Farn--and it was not caused by the Farnallax themselves but by something or someone else..."

They both bowed their heads to the glow of the tablet screen again, scrolling through pages of information on this sun that seemed to be causing a terrible form of madness.

"Wait, here it is," River said. Her tone was one of both satisfaction and sadness. Rose followed her finger to the paragraph in question.

It was a result from a Latter Timestream search, referencing all of the Time Agency's databanks from points forward in the future.

 _Timestream 367.0055, linear K  
Class 8 solar body, commonly known as Nnae-I-Farn, becomes singularity Mu-672._

"It becomes a black hole?" Rose asked, though it wasn't really a question. It was right there in black and white: In the future (and not that distant in the future, either), Nnae-I-Farn goes supernova, and the entire Farn System is destroyed in an instant.

"For a sensitive species like the Farnallax, that might be enough to send them over the edge," River mused, setting the tablet aside as she settled back into the pillows. "They could be prescient as well as empathic. They keep themselves to themselves, so it's possible our data on them is incomplete."

"That's a shame," Rose agreed as she snuggled into River's shoulder. "Still, I guess that's that. And we arrive at Tamna tomorrow."

River made a sleepy sound of being less than excited about that prospect. Rose still felt a little wired, though and picked the tablet up again to check her messages. Every now and then, when Mickey was around to help, her mum was able to navigate the interface and send her reminders to eat right and be careful.

But when she tapped the screen to wake it, instead of seeing the page on Nnae-I-Farn that they'd just been consulting, it was blank. The standard Time Agency watermarking was present, as was the search bar, but the page itself was completely empty.

"Did you erase this or something?" she asked, poking River in the arm.

River jolted awake and gave her a very sour, squinty look indeed. "What?"

"I said, did you erase the page? Look... it's all gone."

"You can't _erase_ an entry from the databank," she mumbled irritably. "Referesh the page."

Rose was already refreshing, but there was nothing. She typed the search back in, to run it again, but this time it came up as unable to be filled. Wondering if there was a fault with the transmission pathways, she ran searches for Tamna and Rose Tyler and Melody Pond (codename: _River Song_ ). All yielded the expected information, but any search involving the Farn system, the Farnallax or Nnae-I-Farn came back empty.

"No, there's really something wrong," she said after several different attempts. "I'm even trying non-Agency sources and... oh god, look at this."

She'd called up a commercial map of Farn's sector. Just a simple map for holiday-makers and delivery freighters, from their current time--just three days ago they'd been on the planet itself, in the middle of a very real civil war. But on this map, where the entire Farn system should have been was simply a blank. Nothing had replaced it, there was no notation indicating that anything had ever been there at all, not even singularity Mu-672. It was just _gone_.

***

In his habitation quarters, Lamm Tiro prepared for his mission. His people utilised several complex meditation techniques to train and focus the mind in time such as this, but he eschewed them all. They had always been fools with delusions of transcendence. Well, the more fool they, for believing he would ever be anything other than what he was. If the legwork hadn't been such a bloody pain, he'd say that this entire gambit had been almost too easy. He'd shed his fears of pain, death and uncertainty while passing through that eternal maelstrom that some would call Hell. Now he was cleansed. Now he was more himself than he'd ever been before. Now there were no limits.


	3. Chapter 3

River Song thinks about her parents.

Though she is in a time and place as far removed as it is possible to get from the village of her childhood, her mum and dad will always look exactly as they did the day she left. Her mother's beautiful red hair will never fade to grey. Her dad will never need a cane to walk across the village green. They are preserved, all the way to the 51st century and far beyond, in their daughter's mind.

At least, that is what River said when Rose had asked her why she never went back to look in on her family.

"You could just visit them when they're young," Rose had said. She was still so green, fresh out of her induction classes, not quite thinking the concept of time travel all the way through to its logical conclusions.

"I don't think it'd do for me to be older every time I see them, when for them only a day has gone by."

Not one to just let something drop where people's feelings were concerned, Rose had chewed her lip and knitted her brow, contemplating for a good long while.

"Can't you just send them an email? I just sent my mum a message the other day. Agent Jesson told me that the computer figures out what time to send it to and all that. It's easy, you just--"

" _No_. And we're done talking about it, Tyler." River could tell that Rose was left with the impression that her parents had somehow caused her pain, or treated her in some unforgivable manner. She hadn't the strength to tell her the truth, that it was the other way around.

The man who calls himself Lamm Tiro enters the small storage closet he has imprisoned her in, rudely interrupting her reminiscences. His face is a mask, moist eyes impassive, as always. It's beginning to infuriate her and she feels the urge to lash out rise inside her chest. Her hands strain against their bonds, fingernails digging deep into her palms as she considers the way his nose would easily break if she punched him at just the right angle.

"So this is your big plan, then?" she says, mocking. "Let my partner escape so that she can return with an army and blow you to Kingdom Come?"

Tiro's mouth barely quivers into the hint of a smile. "Oh, I rather think she's won't."

"You don't know her very well, do you?"

"Let's just say that I know her _type_." He pauses, places his hands casually into his pockets and pulls out a small metallic gadget, about the size of a golf ball. It blinks steadily, a soft blue light illuminating the claustrophobic dimensions of her cell. Tiro looks at it, turns it over in his hand, and puts it away again. "Speaking of which," he says, "you don't happen to know a man called Harkness, do you?"

 

***

 

The Executive Planet of the Mercantile Empire of Tamna loomed out the window, its massive cities twinkling in the tiny sliver of dark left by the setting of its two suns. Rose was in the hold readying their gear for arrival, with River staying on the bridge awaiting their landing permission to come through. The Tamnese were big on paperwork.

In the meantime, she was having a look at the anomaly Rose had identified regarding the Farn System. It was troubling indeed, and all the more frustrating because she found herself unable to put in a request to investigate. Every time she filled out the forms, the computer rejected them for invalid information. That's a Catch-22 if she ever saw one, and would have been funny if she had not been a witness to such horrific slaughter on the planet.

"Right," she muttered to herself, "we'll just have to go back there ourselves."

"Go back where?" The melodic voice of Agent Lamm Tiro startled her, she had become so used to his virtual non-presence on her ship. "I hope I'm not keeping you from somewhere."

"Don't worry, we'll deposit you safe and sound back at your desk as soon as we're done here. Besides, the place we want apparently doesn't exist."

He sat down in a chair, almost perching on the edge like he was afraid of settling in one place for too long. "Existing is over-rated, if you ask me," he said with a genial little laugh. "Where I'm from... well, you've never heard of it, I can assure you. It took quite a lot for me to get from there to where I am today."

"Just a small town boy made good, right? I have a feeling the Farn System isn't quite in the your situation."

"Farn?" Tiro steepled his fingers, and raised an eyebrow (artfully plucked, surely--no one's eyebrows actually grew that way naturally) .

"Have you heard of it?"

"No, I'm afraid not. But the universe is a big place."

She considered that perhaps she'd misjudged him. It wouldn't be the first time, as Rose could well attest. "Looks like our permission's coming through. Agent Tiro, are your papers in order?"

He stood, dusting his lap off as if anything could have had a chance to sully his crisp suit. "I believe so, Agent Song. And I have a strong hope that the presence of you and Agent Tyler will be wholly unnecessary."

"That would be nice," she said, double-checking her weapons. "Oh, and before we proceed I think I have a right to ask just exactly what it is I'll be bringing aboard my ship if our mission goes to plan."

Tiro waved a manicured hand. "It's not dangerous in and of itself, if that's what you're asking. But the Agency feels that this technology, in the wrong hands and put to the wrong use, could potentially be destabilising."

"So what you're saying is to not worry my pretty little head over it," she said acidly.

He didn't seem to get her drift. "Essentially, yes."

The High Amalgamate of the Mercantile Empire of Tamna had granted Agent Tiro an audience in the Grand Boardroom the day following their arrival. The trio were given lodgings that were serviceable but certainly not extravagant. River and Rose set about doing a security sweep as soon as their escort had left. The Tamnese weren't generally known for aggression, but also weren't beyond engaging in a spot of kidnapping if they though there was any money in it. The Time Agency was large and powerful, and the abduction of an agent whom they'd assessed as unlikely to fight back was not outside the realm of possibility.

Rose scanned for bugs while River assessed the locking mechanism on the door. Lamm Tiro sat in an uncomfortable-looking chair, drumming his fingers on his knee.

"Your quarters are also adequate, I trust?" he asked obsequiously.

"Same as yours," Rose said, "We've seen worse."

River had a quiet laugh thinking back on all the ludicrous places they'd been expected to sleep. Rose looked up from her work in time to share a toothy little smile, but then noticed that Tiro was scrutinising them in that strange, dispassionate way of his.

"So, Agent Tiro," Rose said, changing the subject, "what is it that we've come all this way to obtain? I've heard the Tamnese can drive a hard bargain."

His eyes darted over to River, his lips twitching a bit, either into a smile or a frown--she couldn't be sure. "You are an inquisitive pair, aren't you?"

"Sorry," Rose said (clearly not), "I'd just like to know what it is that I'm supposed to be prepared to kill for."

"I'm sure it won't come to all that," Tiro said.

"All the same, we'd consider it a professional courtesy," River interjected.

Tiro rose slowly from his chair and reached into a pocket of his suit trousers, and for one fraction of a second River imagined that he was reaching for a weapon. The feeling was gone again by the time her reaction speed would have enabled her to reach for her own gun, and she felt her skin grow warm with a private sort of shame. Her life, and the life of her partner on occasion, entirely depended on her ability to read complicated situations correctly and respond appropriately. Getting trigger-happy over phantoms was just as great a risk as being oblivious to clear threats. Why would she ever think that a fellow Agent would do such a thing as pull a weapon on her, apropos of nothing? Even for the barest fraction of a moment?

No, the man was simply reaching for a small tablet, which he punched a few buttons on and then handed to Rose. She sat down on the bed to read, and Tiro returned to perching on his chair.

"An experimental energy converter," River read aloud over Rose's shoulder. "Dr. Larna Poole produced only one prototype before she died."

"Such a tragedy," Tiro said reverently.

"Why is the Agency so interested in obtaining it?" Rose asked, handing the tablet back. . "It doesn't seem dangerous. I mean, it's not going to blow us up or anything, right?"

"Only in the wrong hands, I assure you. We'll be perfectly safe carrying it aboard your ship. It would take a genius like Dr. Poole to get it working at all, but the Agency has determined that it poses a threat to the current timestream nonetheless."

They really couldn't be anything but satisfied by his responses. He'd shown them the Agency's own requisition paperwork for the converter, just as they'd asked. So why did River still feel so apprehensive? There seemed no call for it whatsoever. She'd even been on the verge of liking the man earlier that day, and at this point there was no reason not to, other than the kind of wishy-washy gut feeling that, in her experience, led nowhere good or productive.

"I think we're all done here," River finally said, double checking that she'd packed away all of her security sweep kit. "Agent Tyler?"

"Yeah, all done. We'll just be right across the hall and I've placed a panic button on your side table there. Please keep it within reach at all times," she said, addressing Tiro.

River took her anxiety with her back to their own quarters.

Rose, of course, noticed.

"You seem distracted," she said, stripping her clothes off in preparation for a shower.

"And _you_ seem to be taking your trousers off. Do I need another reason?"

"Is it Agent Tiro?"

 _Damn her._

"Can you not bring him up while I'm looking at your bum, please?"

Rose turned, her arms crossed over her bare breasts indicating that she meant to speak seriously for a moment. Her face was open, guileless, inviting River to confide. (In her professional life, River knew that this same look was one of Agent Tyler's most effective weapons, though Rose would blanch every time it was described in those terms.) This business with their new colleague was such a silly thing to get upset over, but River couldn't make herself talk about how she'd almost drawn a gun on the man simply for reaching into his pocket. But at the same time, she couldn't entirely dismiss the deep unease that had led her to react in that way.

"At first I didn't like him either, and he is kind of odd. But I think he's all right, yeah?" Rose smiled warmly, inviting River to agree and just be done with it.

"Yeah, right, of course."

"Just maybe a little eccentric is all. Besides," she uncrossed her arms, placing her hands confidently on her hips, "I bugged his room."

"Oh, you naughty thing!" River said, in what she hoped was a good approximation of changing the subject. Her thoughts on the topic of the strange, unimportant little man they were escorting were simply not worth bothering anyone with. They were _definitely_ not worth bothering naked women with. Naked women who, shortly, would be wet and covered in suds. That would be churlish. River almost physically felt the container into which she would sequester this incident close with a satisfying snap.

"I learned from the best." With Rose framed in the soft light of Tamna's purple-hued sun coming through the window, it was easy to keep that particular container well shut and stowed with all the rest. River wondered if her partner knew what an aid she was to keeping that towering stack of little boxes closed and ignored. And one day, when the stacks finally collapsed under their own height and weight, she hoped Rose would still be there, to help pick up the pieces.

"I hope you've learned more than just how to be an underhanded snoop," River said, shoving the box marked _Guilt Over Lost Innocence_ back into its place amidst all the others.

"Oh, I have. And I've learned from all sorts of other people besides." She began to unbuckle River's holster, taking the weapons out first and checking their safeties in a gesture of competence that was more arousing than all the dirty talk in the universe. River felt gravitationally drawn to kiss her, sucking on her bottom lip until they had to disengage to remove clothing and change venue.

 

After such an eventful shower, listening in on Agent Tiro was fantastically boring. They giggled to hear the telltale sounds of a man urinating. There was some polite coughing, some tapping on a keyboard, and the sound of the pages of an old-fashioned book being turned. As the second sun rose over the utilitarian cement-block architecture of the city, objects in their room began to cast bizarre shadows, and the audio feed went silent. There were still many hours until their date with the Grand Amalgamate and Agent Tiro was surely asleep.

Next to her on the bed, Rose was dozing as well, her hair still wet and mussed. River rolled over and watched the pink glow of Tamna's minor star crawl upwards.

She must have dozed off as well, because the next thing she was aware of was someone tunelessly humming. It took her a moment to realise that Rose mumbling sleepily next to her was reacting to the same sound, and there was one more second until they both remembered the bug in Tiro's room.

"Blimey," Rose said groggily, "he's not half tone-deaf."

"Turn that thing off, I'm begging you," River said as she stretched and began to mentally piece back together where all of her clothes had wound up.

"Yeah, I guess there's no reason to keep it on any more. How long till our audience?"

"Two hours, or thereabouts. I'm _starving_."

Rose was already running a comb through her hair and wriggling into her knickers. "Is there a restaurant in this place or what? I say we expense Agent Tiro's code for this one."

There was a cafe on the bottom floor of the building they were being housed in, and it was a good thing they had decided to charge Tiro' s account for their meal because it was both expensive and mediocre. The people of the Mercantile Empire didn't trouble themselves over matters of aesthetics, seeing food merely as a nutrition-delivery device, and buildings as shelters to keep the weather out.

Rose finally took a last sip of water and put her utensils down despondently. "When we're through here, I'm taking you to back to that place... what was it called? With those delicious little sweets and the tiny roasted birds and all that?"

"That little hole-in-the-wall on Epicutore IV? I like the sound of that." The memory of that meal made her move from simple disappointment to actual anger over what they'd just had to choke down. "It's a date."

"I thought you were returning to Farn." Agent Lamm Tiro was suddenly standing next to them. It was quite a trick, River had to admit.

"I'm sorry, where?" Rose asked.

"The Farn system, dear," River said, though truth be told she didn't quite remember anything about it herself, though it struck her that there was possibly something important going on there.

Tiro observed them, his hands on the empty chair at their table, presumably waiting to be invited to sit. "I'm quite sure you said that after you got done here, you were to return to the Farn system for some sort of investigation."

Rose blinked several times, as if trying to see through a thick fog. River's head ached suddenly, as a whole set of memories flickered into being all at once. She looked over to her partner, who was rubbing her eyes vigorously.

"Oh, wait!" Rose exclaimed, pounding a hand onto her forehead. "How could I forget that?" She paused, thought again, and rephrased: "How _could_ I forget that? That was just a few days ago."

Agent Tiro seemed to give up on being invited and pulled the chair out to seat himself at their table. "My, that _is_ odd," he said to Rose. "Have you had all of your inoculations appropriate to this mission? Have you ever had the Amnesial Fever?"

Rose felt her own forehead and began to take her own pulse, but River stopped her, grabbing her wrist. "It's not just you, Tyler," she said darkly. "I'd almost forgotten, too. Our vitals are fine, Agent Tiro, and we're fully up-to-date on our jabs."

"Oh, dear," said Tiro, thoughtful but apparently without real concern.

"Do you think this has something to do with its disappearance from the maps and the database and all?" Rose asked, but didn't wait for an answer. "Agent Tiro, have you got that tablet of yours on you?" She tapped into the Agency database immediately once he handed it over and scowled as the same blank screen came up.

"I tried to file a report while waiting for landing permission, but I couldn't because there's no such place." River fidgeted nervously with her eating utensils as Rose tried more searches. "Why didn't I tell you that?" she said, mostly to herself. "It's like I forgot all about it until just now."

"What do you make of this, Agent Tiro?" Rose asked, handing the tablet back over with the offending blank screen still loaded.

"I see I'm never going to be able to get you to call me Lamm," he said, smiling mildly before examining the evidence (or lack thereof). "And you say you were just there a few days ago?"

River nodded. "On Agency business, even. We were sent to mediate a conflict, though that turned out to be more a mission to dodge bullets in a civil war."

"We took one of the combatants aboard our cruiser," Rose added. "He was wounded..." She trailed off, avoiding talking about the Farnallax's true fate.

Throughout their description of the Farn incident and their discoveries afterward, Tiro continued to work with the tablet, presumably confirming what they had already found. At length, he set the tablet down again and smoothed out his goattee. "I think I may be able to help you."

"Yeah?" Rose said, sitting forward in her chair.

Tiro seemed to appreciate her open enthusiasm, and a rare smile crept across his features. "I believe so. Have you ever heard of the Hidden Archive?"


End file.
